From the Mind of Jason Zandri

As published in the Record Journal, Friday July 1, 2011

By Russell Blair
Record-Journal staff
rblair@record-journal.com
(203) 317-2225

WALLINGFORD — The weather forecast has improved for the town’s Fourth of July fireworks celebration Saturday, but should it rain, organizer Jason Zandri says the event is unlikely to be rescheduled.

Zandri said he was told this week by Mayor William W. Dickinson Jr. that rescheduling the fireworks on such short notice would be impossible, but Zandri believes it can be done.

“You pick another date, you work it out with the vendor and publicize the new date,” Zandri said. The logistics are difficult, but not impossible.”

Dickinson said Thursday that the trouble with rescheduling the event has to do with scheduling overtime for the police officers needed to safely run it.

“I think it’s primarily because of difficulties in scheduling the kind of manpower that is needed,” Dickinson said. “People are called in for service who would normally be off in order to have enough people to provide the public safety.”

The town had long funded the annual fireworks show, but budget cuts threatened to cancel it last year. Zandri, Town Councilor Craig Fishbein and other volunteers managed to raise enough money to save it and have since set up a nonprofit fireworks fund. This year, they needed to raise $24,150 by May 27.

Dickinson said the money for the display had to be collected well in advance so the Police Department would have enough time to find officers to work the event.

“The Police Department needed to know by the beginning of June to get the word out,” Dickinson said. Scheduling the same number of officers for another day would be difficult.

“It becomes impossible to do that over multiple days,” Dickinson said.
Another part of the concern over potential cancellation of the event is the overtime that could still have to be paid. If the event is called due to weather after police, fire and public works employees report for duty at the site — 5 p.m. — Zandri said $12,000 worth of overtime would still have to be paid.

“There’s the possibility we have the show with a chance of thunderstorms, it starts pouring at 6 p.m. and we call the show when they’re already out there,” Zandri said. “That’d be the perfect storm.”

He added that the fund has $1,000 lined up for next year, but not enough money to cover a second day’s worth of overtime.

If the event is canceled earlier in the day, the overtime won’t have to be paid, but it’s up to the town to set a new date and find available personnel. If the town doesn’t have to spend the money for the overtime, Dickinson said, it would be returned to the fund.

Zandri said he remembered fireworks being rescheduled when he was younger, but said he can’t remember a rain date being used recently. Dickinson said to his knowledge the town has never needed to shoot off its Independence Day fireworks on a rain date. Since the Wallingford Fireworks Fund delivered the check to the town, Zandri said that the town has been handling the planning of the event. Dickinson said that the decision of whether to call the event due to weather would be up to the police, fire marshal and parks and recreation.

The fireworks begin at 9 p.m. Saturday, with viewing available on the grounds of Sheehan High School, Moran Middle School and Highland School. Weather forecasts on Thursday were predicting a very low chance of rain Saturday, compared to forecasts earlier this week of intermittent thunderstorms.

All the hard work and effort should be paying off this Saturday.

As of right now we are all set to go for 9PM on Saturday on the grounds of Sheehan High School, Moran Middle School and Highland Elementary School.

The long range weather forecast (for whatever it’s worth) says that there is a chance for scattered thunderstorms so it’s going to be a crap shoot going into the week; as that forecast gets updated I’ll keep you posted.

I want to let everyone know too, I will be calling the Mayor today to discuss, but I would expect that if the show is called due to inclement weather it will be cancelled and NOT rescheduled.

I have to double check that with the Mayor and hence my call to him today but that is what I would be expecting and here is why:

The overtime that the Wallingford Fireworks Fund has collected and donated to the town will have been paid to the workers. If the police, fire and public works people are working they will be paid especially if the event is called the last minute.

If the town reschedules the show to the following weekend (as an example) that overtime of about $12,000.00 will need to be paid again.

The Wallingford Fireworks Fund doesn’t have any remaining money (other than a few hundred dollars) so there is no way for the fund to make an additional donation.

I also do not believe that the town will pay the additional overtime. It wasn’t interested in splitting the cost of the show by covering the town services in the first place so I fund it highly doubtful that they’d do it in this scenario either.

Again, I have to have the conversation with the Mayor to confirm and I am going to try to do this today.

I’ll keep you posted.

Thank you again for the support.